In 1964 the front door of St. Louis was closed. It is time we reopen it.

At the same time that the Gateway Arch was completed, Interstate 70 opened between the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial site and downtown St. Louis. Although intended to bring people into the region's center, the interstate disrupted the city's street grid and isolated the new national monument and the river from the activity of downtown. A two-hundred-year-old connection was lost. Now, St. Louis has a momentous opportunity to revisit the unintended consequences of the interstate. The time has come to reopen the region's front door.